May 20, 2015; Wednesday in the Seventh Week

All week at Eucharist we’ve been hearing farewells.  We’re late in the book of Acts, as Paul goes back to Jerusalem, is arrested, and makes his journey to Rome and the emperor.  In John’s Gospel Jesus is saying goodbye and praying to God on behalf of the disciples.  Later he will return and tell Peter to tend the sheep.  It’s a week for wrapping things up.

(I just have to mention that David Letterman is also saying goodbye this week after 22 years hosting The Late Show.  Coincidence?  You decide.)

All these farewells can make me a little melancholy.  If we didn’t have the book of Acts, we might think the story ended on the beach with Peter and Jesus.  But Acts is the final “narrative” in the canonical Scriptures, so when it ends in its rather anticlimactic fashion it can sound like a dwindling away.  It just ends.  Paul is hanging around Rome, talking and waiting.  It doesn’t sound like much.

But we know the story continues.  We know because we are here today, reading these books and talking about Jesus.  And with the discovery of the apocryphal books we know that many more stories were written about Jesus and the disciples.  We’re talking about them too.  So I know these goodbyes are not really the end.

And yet, there are real endings.  Jesus leaves, at least in recognizable form.  Paul dies.  Peter dies.  Even Mary Magdalene dies, somewhere.  New generations of disciples arise, and die in turn.  There are real endings.

As we prepare for Pentecost, for a new beginning that is a continuation of the eternal Spirit’s movement, it’s a good time to consider what is left unsaid or undone.  Jesus prays that the disciples will be one, that they will be safe in body and in spirit.  Jesus tells Peter what to do next (though not very clearly, for sure).  I like to think that Paul reconciled with anyone he had a dispute with before he left for Rome.

In these last few days, is there anything you need to close the door on?  Any words left unsaid, love left unexpressed, concerns or prayers unsaid?  Is there anyone or anything you need to say farewell to?

I’ll be pondering this today, and this week.  I want to be ready for the next chapter of the life God dreams for me.  If you do too, seize this chance.  Come, Holy Spirit!

Sermon at the Monastery, Ascension Day 2015

When I first entered religious life in 2000, one sister was most responsible for my coming, and my staying.  Sr. Margaret Helena was my mentor, my amma in the religious life.  She was the one who had what I wanted - zeal, love of God, a lifetime of discipline that had brought her some joy.  Many found her intimidating, but I found her strong and loving.  She was one week short of 99 when she died, in the fall of 2003.

I had made my first vows in June.  When she died, I remember thinking, “I can’t do this without you.”  I would never have said that out loud to her - she wouldn’t have wanted that kind of dependence.  She would have wanted to know that I could go on, that I would go on.  She expected me to become superior of the community, to revive it in some way.  Sr. Margaret Helena was not big on sentimentality or neediness.  

And she was right - I could go on, and I did.  In the end, I went in directions she wouldn’t have liked.  I went out the door of CSJB.  But I did go on.  The lessons she taught me are still in me.  The love of religious life, the love of God, the honesty and determination she showed me - I carry those in me.

I imagine the disciples were in a similar situation after Jesus ascended.  They had lost him before, but he quickly returned.  Then, according to Luke’s Gospel, he leaves again at the end of Easter Day.  I imagine Luke felt a gap there, felt a need to make Jesus’ resurrection more convincing to readers, so in Acts he extends Jesus’ stay to forty days.  

Whichever scenario we follow, the ascension and the commission agree.  Jesus commissions the disciples to carry his message of repentance and forgiveness.  Then he is carried up to heaven.  As Elisha watched Elijah go, the disciples watch Jesus go.  

And now again we have two versions of the story.  In the Gospel, they return to Jerusalem with great joy and spend their time in the Temple.  In Acts, they return to the upper room and begin to organize.  Either way, there is a notable change in their actions.  

After the crucifixion, they either hid or scattered.  They were in despair.  They didn’t know if, or how, they could go on without Jesus.  

After the ascension, they are filled with joy and purpose.  They don’t know yet what the Holy Spirit has in store for them, but they are confident that God is at work.  This confidence inspires them to get to work in turn.  Like Elisha, like Joshua after Moses’ death, this motley crew will continue the mission of proclaiming the dream of God.

But where does that resilience and renewal come from?  I could easily say the Holy Spirit, and that would be true, but it helps sometimes to look into the particular ways the Spirit works.  The Spirit has many gifts, many fruits, and we are called to tend the garden of those fruits so they can grow to their full stature.  

When the author of Ephesians wants to uplift that congregation, he prays that they will receive wisdom and revelation to know the hope to which they are called, the rich inheritance awaiting them, and God’s immeasurable power.  They need that revelation.  They are no triumphal church; they are a minority, subject to misunderstanding if not active persecution.  They need reminding that God is with them.

We all need that reminder.  When we are hurting, we need others to be our memory and hope.  Last week, as Andrew left us, people all over the world were praying for him and for you.  They continue to pray.  

As one of them, I will say that I pray not only for comfort for you all, for us all, but also for strength and courage to be the sort of people who drew Andrew to this life, and who draw others into Christ’s community of love.

Even before Pentecost, the disciples were guided by the Holy Spirit to continue to gather, to pray, to worship, to organize.  They elected Matthias to replace Judas.  They did what they could.  Sometimes, that is the best gift the Spirit can give us - just to keep doing the next right thing rather than collapse.

Before the crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples he would not leave them friendless.  He would send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to guide and strengthen them.   They didn’t understand before the resurrection, but it seems that after his ascension they were able to believe that.  

As we enter these ten days before Pentecost, these days of waiting, we too can trust that the Spirit is with us, waiting to show us more of who God is, who we are, and what we can do in the power of the Spirit.  We too can bless God and worship with great joy.  Visible or invisible, our God reigns.  

Why do you stand looking up to heaven?  There’s work to be done!  Come, Holy Spirit!  Empower us to be your people on earth.  Amen

Rotation Sunday, May 10, 2015

Sixth Sunday in Easter, May 10, 2015


How many of you will celebrate Rogation Sunday today, or the three Rogation Days this week?  How many of you wonder what on earth a Rogation Day is?  Go look it up on Wikipedia.
OK, that was unhelpful.  Just letting out my little smarty-mouth for a minute.  But seriously: go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogation_days for an exhaustive treatment.
Rogation Days are the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday before Ascension Day.  Since most of us don’t go to the church during the week, the Sixth Sunday in Easter is sometimes celebrated as Rogation Sunday.  Rogation comes from the Latin “rogare,” to pray.  For Anglicans, it is a time to bless the fields, bless the parish, bless ministries.
When I lived with the Community of St. John Baptist in New Jersey, we celebrated Rogation by walking around the grounds, singing, with incense and holy water.  We blessed the convent; the retreat house; the labyrinth; the employees’ houses; the former school that is now a drug treatment center; we blessed the animals that lived there.  We prayed that all these would be sites of meaningful ministry, that people would find God through these venues and people.  It was a very powerful time for me.  When I served a parish, I instituted the practice there.
Since moving up here I haven’t celebrated Rogation.  The brothers don’t do it.  But this year I’m going for it.  Our house is a center for ministry as well as prayer and daily life.  We need all the prayers we can get!  We need prayers: for cleaning, for gardening, for the river that runs through our basement and the animals living in our walls.
Holy water - check.
Incense - check.
Songs - check.
Prayers - check.

What will you do?  If you don’t have holy water, or don’t believe in blessing water, just say a prayer.  Pray to be a center of peace, a center of life and growth, a sign of God in a world desperate for God.  Pet your animals, tend your plants, start a compost pile.  Recycle something you would normally throw out.  Give thanks for creation.  Amen!

Andrew OHC, Alleluia

May 7, 2015

Brother Andrew OHC died yesterday.  He had struggled for several years with pulmonary fibrosis, and finally his lungs gave out.  He was on a vent for five days, until his family could gather, and then in accordance with his wishes the vent was taken out.  The monastery is in silent retreat these days, so conversation is limited.  Elizabeth is out of town, and I'm here alone except for the cats.  The silence is hard, but seems appropriate.
Just last week Andrew was saying that he had no fear of death.  He loved his life, he was in no hurry to die, but he was ready when it came.  Did he sense how near it was?  Or did he, rather, know that it is always near, in a way that most of us can choose to ignore?  Whichever it was, I'm glad to have had that time with him.
This morning I went down the hill for Matins with the brothers.  Since we're in Easter, we began with the Pascha Nostrum, the Easter hymn to resurrection.  Death is overcome, Alleluia.  It was powerful, poignant, to say these verses together today.
I'll tell you the honest truth.  I don't know what death brings.  I don't know what resurrection means, or will mean.  Someone said to me, "you'll see Andrew again."  I have trouble with that.  I believe that we are gathered into God at death, but I don't believe that the "I" writing this will survive - my memories, my thoughts.  So who is the "I" that would see "Andrew" again?  I don't need to know.  "I" am not likely to know.  And that's OK with me.
Like all the greatest mysteries, death is best approached not through science or proof of argument, but through poetry and imagery and sacrament.  In those ways we go beyond the boundaries of "I" and "you," beyond life vs. death, beyond contradiction to paradox.  So while I don't know anything about life after death, I nonetheless feel clear that Andrew lives in God, with the saints in light.  He was a harpist in life, so I'm sure he is now.
I loved Andrew.  I love Andrew.  He was a blessed, cussed man, complex and multifaceted.  He believed in us, in the Companions, even when we diverged from his idea of what a "monastic" community should be and do.  If consciousness survives, we will probably drive him crazy over the years.  Then, when I die, he'll tell me all about what we did wrong.  And he will love me, and I will love him as I do today.
Beloved Jesus, receive your servant Andrew into your loving arms.  Hold a place for me, so that I may dance to his music in your presence.  Until then, blessed Andrew, pray for us.

Sunday, May 3 2015

It's Sunday morning and I haven't even looked at the scriptures for today.  I've been on vacation with my family, reading the daily office readings but nothing else.  Now I'm up at 4 a.m., frustrated that I can't sleep.  I'm honoring my commitment to write every week, but I don't know that I have anything to share.

I turn to the lectionary and look: Acts 8:26-40, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8.  Phillip and the Ethiopian, Jesus the vine, and love.  My pulse starts to slow as I read.  

I've been worried the last two days in a way that often happens for me when I visit my siblings.  They are both very successful.  They've worked hard and managed their money and their families.  Now we're all in the neighborhood of 60.  My sister thinks of retiring.  My brother has kids in college, but has saved and planned.  All is well.

And me?  I left teaching in 2000, gave away almost everything to follow Jesus.  I have some little pots of money here and there, and a little Social Security built up, but no plan.  I'm getting by these days, we get by as Companions, but we have no long range plan.  We have no endowment.

This summer we will make our final vows as Companions.  We will pool our remaining assets and trust one another, and God, to be enough.  I've felt ready for this grand adventure for a while, but when I visit my siblings I wonder: am I nuts?  Is this joyful faith, or just avoidance of reality?  Will I really feel God's love and no regret when I'm struggling to get into a Medicaid facility, trying to find enough to eat and pay rent?  Nothing in my family's history prepares me for this.

I pray to know what to do.  If I'm supposed to go get a regular job with benefits, show me.  But how will I know?  John says that "perfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18).  So probably God is not in the fear.  If I'm to change my path, it will more likely show up as the need to serve in some new way.  Some way that pays money.

For now I'll continue on this path, because I don't see any other.  I'm simply getting too much joy from watching others grow, from building this extended community.  If God is in this, I pray She will continue to house and feed us.  Please pray for me, for us, for guidance and the removal of fear.

Jesus is the vine.  "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." (John 15:7).  Lead me, Jesus.  Lead us all.

Sermon, Fourth Sunday in Easter, April 26 2015

The Gospel for this week is always Jesus talking about being the good shepherd.  That makes me the sheep.  Every year I think about what kind of sheep I am, how I look to God.  I think about Jesus loving me and caring for me.
Rarely do I listen carefully to the Epistle.  But this year I heard it.  I am not just the sheep.  I’m supposed to be a shepherd too - not because I’m a priest, but because I’m a Christian.  I’m baptized into the company of shepherds.  And Jesus is not only my shepherd - he’s the model for how I’m supposed to be a shepherd.
Now, I’m better at being a sheep than a shepherd.  Sheep wander, they complain, they butt heads.  I can do that.  But shepherds - that’s harder.  What does it mean to be a shepherd?
Our Epistle selection gives us a clue.
John is writing to a congregation that is apparently struggling with questions that might be familiar to us.
What is it to live Christian life, to follow Jesus?
How do we know what matters?
How do we decide who belongs and who is outside?
How do we deal with sin and strife within the community?
In short, how are we to be disciples?
These questions aren’t peculiar to John’s community.  They arise in all communities that try to follow Jesus.
There have been two main answers to the question of how to be a disciple.  The first says that we must believe in Jesus, that faith is what matters most.  Now, belief isn’t just a matter of agreeing with ideas or a creed; it is active reliance on God working in Christ.  We believe when we rely on Jesus to be the good shepherd, to provide for us and guide us.
The second answer to the question of discipleship is action, what another writer calls works.  The letter of James says that “faith without works is dead.”  Some people carry that to focus solely on works as proof of their faith.  They feed the hungry and care for the sick, and for many that is their real prayer life.
From the beginning, the Church has been divided between the faith camp and the works camp.  Lots of judging goes on on both sides.  In our time it sometimes shows up as the line between more conservative denominations or churches and those aimed at social justice.
But John cuts right through this division.
“And this is God’s commandment, that we should believe in the name of God’s son Jesus Christ and love one another” (3:23).
And.  The magic word.
In fact, the connection between faith and works is closer than “and” can say.  Faith and works are inseparable.
Real faith, real belief, real reliance on God lead us to know God’s love in us.  This love leads us to lay down our lives for one another.  This doesn’t mean that we have to prove our love by one grand gesture.  John is referring to all the little ways we lay down our lives.

We share our food and clothing and time.  We make choices mindful of the impact on others.  We honor God rather than our own desires.  This is the daily substance of laying down our lives for one another.  And we only do it out of love and faith.
Now, this can sound like a test.   Such a commandment can easily lead to guilt and self-condemnation.  And I think many of us were raised in traditions that encouraged that.  Week after week we might hear the words in church that remind us that we aren’t enough.
But John offers encouragement more than judgment.  We do have to act, if we want the life promised to us.  But God will help if we ask.  God knows us and wills our wholeness and joy.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, loves us even as we wander and butt heads with one another.
Here’s the thing: as long as our good works are motivated by fear and guilt, we are missing not only the promise of God - we’re missing the commandment.
The commandment stresses believing in God, in the God who raised Jesus, and letting God’s love fill our hearts.  Love cannot sink into a heart filled with guilt.  Guilt is another way to be self-centered.  Love comes from fullness and empties out toward others.  It is not duty; it is delight.
Jesus gives us the model of self-giving love when he lays down his life.  And just as he is raised, just as he takes up his life again, we find that when we lay down our lives for one another we are raised in turn.
We find new life in loving others.  We find talents and strength we didn’t know we had.  We find companions on the journey.  We find new joy and gratitude in our hearts.  In fact, the life we take up is infinitely better than the life we laid down, richer, fuller.
Parents know this.  People who serve others know this.  Every summer some people will go on mission trips.  They give their time, a little bit of their lives, for their neighbors.  Everyone I know who goes on a mission trip comes home feeling like they were the ones who received a gift.
But we don’t do this on our own.  We do this through the Holy Spirit working in us.  God is the main actor here.  We are the sheep.  We are the recipients of this amazing grace.  Jesus goes before us to show us the way, to show us that the way is trustworthy even when it looks dangerous.  Our job is to listen for his voice, to follow, to believe and to act.
Good sheep, good shepherds.  Walk in love.

Third Sunday in Easter, April 19, 2015

Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:30b-48

First I have to get this off my chest.  

The anointing of Peter continues.  In the reading from Luke we hear that Jesus asks the disciples, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”  Then he “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”  In Acts, Peter asks the crowd “why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us” after they heal a man; then he tells them the Jesus story, and seemingly “opens their minds.”  Both Jesus and Peter announce a call for repentance and forgiveness.  So just in case you’re wondering, Peter is the heir.  Not Mary, not Thomas, not John or James.  Peter.  And on this rock, and no other, etc.  

Tell that to the people who read other Gospels, other writings; who listened to women preach, who heard a different Jesus message.  They’re still out there, whispering.  Call them heretics, call them Gnostics, whatever - that Holy Spirit landed on a lot of people.  There’s enough for all of us.

OK, enough picking on Peter.  What I love in this Gospel passage is this: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”  You mean I can disbelieve and wonder and also feel joy?  You mean that “belief” is not one cloth, and “doubt” is another?  Yes!

At our Coffee Table Communion conversation and Friday we talked about how our Sunday Schools never introduced us to the disorienting experience of Jesus or God.  They taught us words, they might have opened our intellects, but they rarely touched that place where joy and wonder live.  Now, as adults, we choose to start with the experience and seek understanding after.  Understanding doesn’t eliminate questions or even doubts.  It gives us a place to start from to address those questions, and it gives us practices to hold onto while we doubt.  We worship and pray even as we sometimes disbelieve.  And then, after sharing food with us, Jesus opens our minds.  That comes later.

Following Jesus doesn’t mean certainty.  It means sticking close through all the surprises and disappointments and miracles of our lives.  it means joy even in times of fear.  And yes, it means repenting and forgiving.  

May you be graced with the crazy experience of the risen Christ this day, this week.  May you know yourself to be God’s child, loved and loving.  Go, be a blessing!